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NQ-Deckard

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8 hours ago, Musclethorpe said:

This is an irrelevant observation as the "open face" model is not likely the final.

 

Repair work is just fine, and most assuredly adds to the unique DU PvP experience. However, being able to completely remove and replace entire elements like engines, wings, weapons, and circuitry is completely over the top. Sure, lets have those spare parts on board in the event that the battle has left the ship crippled beyond standard repair, but we are digressing here. The main point is that is just one aspect of the silliness that can occur while in build mode during the battle. It should be eliminated completely during combat (pvp timer), which still allows for repair crews to handle their business.

My point was more in line with your opinion than I think you are taking this, let me try to further explain. Have a "mechanics" skill line, that while in combat allows for refit, at longer time intervals, Such as if combat is occurring refits take (another EDIT FOR CLARITY) 275% at tier 1 to 150% at say tier 5, longer to attach, to account for duress, or other conditions. It adds that layer of pressure. Not to mention a good voxel builder as stated previously could also design a layout that does not require a trip outside to repair, then have a mechanic that has sunk the time into those skills to allow for a modicum of repair during the fight along with refit. At a more acceptable time frame than Instant. 

We effectively get a regen "class" (not entirely unheard of in games) which takes time to be valuable. Just as with shooting skills piloting skills and other various aspects.  There is Nothing "Silly" about this. I feel its grounded in reality a lot more then, "NO we cant  EDITED FOR CLARITY  refit / (fix) it because timer".

There's valuable Loot involved for those able to reduce that build to 0 as well in the form of extra scrap and Parts. Not to mention a new Skill Tree to enjoy, offer relevant skills to team members aside from the people in chairs. and during combat, can add an element of strategy. 

Personally, I feel it offers just the opposite of, "... and finally in the spirit of all things sci-fi completely "unrealistic" when it comes to the essence of space combat fantasy." I feel it adds depth and a level of complexity to the combat. would it require balancing ? Sure but then that is what this thread is all about. Listening to the community, gaining valuable feed back and suggestions.

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2 hours ago, The_Kurgan said:

So you mean to say that a person on the outside of the ship wouldnt or couldnt be tethered to the ship in build mode?? Last time I checked the International Space Station is moving pretty damned fast and they tether and climb around it doing repairs all the time.

 

 

1) The ISS is moving in a single direction at a constant velocity. For all intents and purposes it is motionless relative to its passengers, as they are moving with it. Speed is irrelevant here. What is relevant is that a space ship in combat is going to be dynamically changing both speed and direction of travel quite frequently. 

 

2) As you stated, they are doing repairs. We have a repair system in DU, and it is even augmented by talents. I will say this yet again, repairing during a battle is all well and good, and was one of the unique aspects that drew me to DU PvP. Going into build mode and making potentially large alterations to the ship during actual combat is not so good.

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2 minutes ago, SnoaKitten said:

We effectively get a regen "class" (not entirely unheard of in games) which takes time to be valuable. Just as with shooting skills piloting skills and other various aspects.  There is Nothing "Silly" about this. I feel its grounded in reality a lot more then, "NO we cant fix it because timer".

 

Where are you getting this "no fix" ideation? We have a repair skill, and supporting repair talents, all of which can take place during combat. It's a perfectly reasonable gameplay limitation to not be able to potentially change the entire configuration of the ship while in the middle of a firefight. Elements generally have three "lives" before they are beyond repair. There is absolutely no reason to have said element replaced while fighting. Like many games that have PvP, once the battle begins you are locked in on changing your loadout.

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Just now, Musclethorpe said:

 

Where are you getting this "no fix" ideation? We have a repair skill, and supporting repair talents, all of which can take place during combat. It's a perfectly reasonable gameplay limitation to not be able to potentially change the entire configuration of the ship while in the middle of a firefight. Elements generally have three "lives" before they are beyond repair. There is absolutely no reason to have said element replaced while fighting. Like many games that have PvP, once the battle begins you are locked in on changing your loadout.

Then I fear we will have to end this here as I have given my points.  Repair and refit should be skilled together have governing abilities. and be an option. I was happy to have this debate with you. Thank you for taking the time to address my ideas ^_^

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Make repairs while the combat clock is running take 3x longer than otherwise.  If a voxel or element that is under repair is hit, the feedback through the nanocrafter injures (or kills, I guess, until you have avatar damage implemented) the player performing the repairs no matter how far away they are.

Add a to-hit % adjustment, after all other calculations, between the size of the weapon firing and the size of the target core:

Weapon Size   Target Core Size

                        XS         S          M          L
XS                    1           1          1           1
S                       0.75     1          1           1
M                     0.50      0.75     1           1

L                       0.25     0.50      0.75      1

 

This combined with the lower rate of fire for larger weapons would make smaller ships more survivable but not make it impossible for a L weapon to hit a XS fighter.  It would also give battleships a reason to have smaller weapons for point defense which would make ship design more interesting.
 

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20 hours ago, Dinkledash said:

Make repairs while the combat clock is running take 3x longer than otherwise.  If a voxel or element that is under repair is hit, the feedback through the nanocrafter injures (or kills, I guess, until you have avatar damage implemented) the player performing the repairs no matter how far away they are.

Add a to-hit % adjustment, after all other calculations, between the size of the weapon firing and the size of the target core:

Weapon Size   Target Core Size

                        XS         S          M          L
XS                    1           1          1           1
S                       0.75     1          1           1
M                     0.50      0.75     1           1

L                       0.25     0.50      0.75      1

 

This combined with the lower rate of fire for larger weapons would make smaller ships more survivable but not make it impossible for a L weapon to hit a XS fighter.  It would also give battleships a reason to have smaller weapons for point defense which would make ship design more interesting.
 

You'll want to give different sized ships a different strategic advantage that promotes good gameplay. Changing values like this barely affect the gameplay. What NQ did was change the weapon tracking speed which is a much better solution because that promotes good gameplay. Balancing that property will have a very similar effect combined with what the player chooses to do. Getting in close should make it hard for big weapons to hit. So another thing that might need some tweeking is the speed and maneuvreability of smaller ships vs bigger ships in order to get a good balance.

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Additionally 

4 hours ago, Serula said:

You'll want to give different sized ships a different strategic advantage that promotes good gameplay. Changing values like this barely affect the gameplay. What NQ did was change the weapon tracking speed which is a much better solution because that promotes good gameplay. Balancing that property will have a very similar effect combined with what the player chooses to do. Getting in close should make it hard for big weapons to hit. So another thing that might need some tweeking is the speed and maneuvreability of smaller ships vs bigger ships in order to get a good balance.

There are certainly other things that would improve gameplay but I was thinking that the weap-core size differential would be easy to implement.  Deflection and relative speed modifiers would also be a great improvement from a tactical perspective.  Adding evasion skills for pilots would significantly increase the importance of the pilot relative to the gunner and making evasion skills work better for smaller cores could make fighter pilot a real job.  Also, adding fixed forward XS and S weapons with very narrow cones and short range that do a lot of damage would make fighters a much more cost-effective firepower solution (considering that the real bottleneck is human players rather than game resources, there has to be some advantage to smaller ships that makes them attractive.  Anyway, tiny ships with massive turreted guns are ugly so there would be an aesthetic appeal as well.

 

Also I understand the 30kkph limit is necessary because of lag, but maybe the relativistic effects could kick in at lower speeds for larger cores to give smaller ships an advantage when maneuvering.  It makes sense that massive ships would warp space more at lower speeds relative to C than small ships would, right?

 

Countermeasures elements such as sandcasters, radar jammers, countermissiles, decoys, etc would also increase survivability and be more effective against different weapon types and in different situations (ie sandcasters work against lasers, countermissiles against missiles, maybe specialized armor voxel types work well against guns and railguns, and decoys and radar jamming against everything but not as effectively).  

I (and from what I recall quite a few others) would like to see spinal mounts for large ships that have a very narrow cone but are very long range and do a lot of damage.  Personally, I'd like to see spinal mounts be made of multiple elements that get linked together rather than one big element, so you could make weapons that do more damage, have longer range, have higher rates of fire and are more accurate depending on what elements you use when building the weapon system.  Plus that way the weapon's performance could be degraded as the constituent elements take damage.  We could have the four standard types (laser, railgun, missile and cannon) as well as exotic types (tachyon, graviton, chronon and singularity launchers) that would have exotic effects and may be a little dangerous to use.

 

Underpinning everything though would be a power system that charges weapons and shields.  Maybe you could overload lasers and shields at the risk of burning them out.  You can use LUA to make a control interface to apply power to a particular shield generator or weapon, choose which ones to power down when you start running out of juice.  It would add a lot of depth to combat.

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Here's what we need for pvp to be better.

 

* A progressive way to work up to large cores and large weapons. There needs to be more reasons to use small and medium ships.

* NPC targets to practice on, or a mission to fight them. The current missions are a joke.

* A better weapons interface. The cockpit should be reworked so that we can use it in small pvp ships.

 

What we don't need:

 

* Overpriced weapons and ammo (this is more because we don't have a healthy economy or large player bases)

* desync issues

* 2 SU limited radar

* 5 km atmo radar

* Years of talents to master a weapon.

* Stacked element ships 

 

 

 

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